Angels...... *the sequel to Demons*
by Undapl
Summary: Devi in the afterlife. Chapter 3 up... are things getting too confusing?
1. Heaven Finally

Open your eyes  
  
Devi slowly stirred, her hand automatically reaching to caress the skin above her heart. The flesh was intact, flawless. Her heart wasn't beating, but she seemed okay. She was laying on dirt, and was rather uncomfortable. She remembered the dark. Something had happened, but she wasn't quite aware. She opened her eyes expecting to find herself in a better place.  
  
But the scene painted before her was all muted greys and browns. Dust blew in the wind, and decrepit buildings and fences hung about. A sign announced proudly "This is Heaven" and Devi stood.  
  
"Perfect," She said, wandering about, trying to see more. It had a very distinct atmosphere. A perfect wasteland, Devi thought to herself. How poetic.  
  
She was surprised to come upon the creature as easily as she did. For someone of such celebrity, you'd expect fences and signs and body guards. But in the middle of the desolate wasteland, a sign calmly announced God, a chubby little lima bean lounging on a couch before a television.  
  
More thoughts were coming back to her. That stupid fuck Johnny. All the hate that had been boiling inside of her. She remembered laughing in ecstasy at his misfortune. But what had happened...  
  
"God," She said unconsciously, not meaning to address the gnome. He distractedly hissed 'shh!' without looking up. Devi sighed and approached God. "I suppose you're impressed with yourself." She insulted half- heartedly. "It must've been hard to create and control such a fucked up world. Kudos."  
  
God hissed evilly and pointed to the tv. Devi followed his glance; on screen, a man and woman were yelling. The man hit the woman, who fell. God laughed maniacally. The people onscreen looked vaguely familiar. Devi walked up to the television and pressed a button. The channel changed to another scene, a kid sitting on the top of the monkey bars with a crowd of kids screaming at him from below. Another channel showed a cashier at a gas station lying on the counter with blood spilling from his head. Devi began to viciously press the button, watching millions of clips of lives pass through the screen. Finally she stopped on a channel that was almost all black. A crying eye closed in the dark. A hand vaguely felt a shoulder. There was a slice through the air, and then a face rose above.... then broke down in sobs. Johnny fell over her body. Devi turned off the television subdued.  
  
God wiped a tear from his eye and gave another hearty chuckle. Devi looked at him doubtfully. "I would question your authority but by now I'm far too cynical to be surprised." She said. Then wandered off again.  
  
At the check-in window, a man asked for her name. Apparently, she was accepted into heaven, and she was given her own special little chair, and sat. Maybe now all the shit ends, she thought bitterly, not really believing it. She sat; strange little bugs buzzed about her head, and she slapped at them. They crushed easily into glittery powder that felt like dirt on her hands. "Goddamn, this sucks!" Devi leaned back and tried to lose consciousness in her thoughts.  
  
Johnny was in front of her; he didn't know it, it was too dark. Devi gleefully approached and grabbed him, wrapping her arms around him and touching her lips to his neck. He shivered, his body tensed and agitated, and Devi was laughing at his frustration. He couldn't stand it that she was getting to him. Devi pushed him around and embraced him, loving the stupidity and accepting the fucked-up ness of the world. Devi could feel the blood rushing through her veins and she could breathe because she was finally alive, and she was tripping on a high of ecstasy and the world was finally beautiful in the hate and revenge. And then the knife was pushed inside and all the feeling was locked in that moment. Devi alive and dead in one perfect endless minute.  
  
"Shit," Devi got up and paced about heaven. Everyone else was peacefully sitting in their chairs, content and quiet. "Fuck you!" Devi screamed at one. "Fuck this! How can you be happy in a place like this!" She noticed she was trembling, and then she began to run. She ran for a long time, her eyes closed, trying to feel endorphins or a faster pulse or fatigue. But it was nothing. She might not have even been running. She stopped, and wandered, looking through the sky and trying to figure out where she was, if this place even existed. Then she screamed again, letting go of any restraint, letting her voice become a desperate, animal roar. After a minute her voice cracked and broke, and she fell to the dust sobbing noiselessly.  
  
Feet approached her, a small shadow cast over her lowered head. Devi swallowed thickly and hissed to herself "I'm going to kill him."  
  
"You're the only one alive here." A small voice replied. "Everyone else looks dead. Why?" Devi looked up to see a small boy standing above her, scared and lonely, clutching a knife in his trembling hands.  
  
"Give me that." Devi took the knife and slowly stood. She looked over to the boy standing beside her. "Hmm.... I wonder why you're alive."  
  
"I'm scared."  
  
"You're not happy, that's for sure." Devi glanced around them, at the solid people. "Perhaps that's why we're not that boring. We're unhappy."  
  
"What's your name."  
  
"Devi. Want to help me escape this place, little boy?"  
  
"My name's Todd."  
  
"That's great. Follow me." The little boy ran to catch up with her, and took her hand. She smiled and pulled him along among the crowd of corpses. After walking for a minute, she could hear the sounds of the television approach her ears. She smiled contentedly and sped up.  
  
God looked up with annoyance as she approached him. She didn't slow down; rather, walked right up to him and sat on his lap. The expression on his face was priceless. God growled with self-righteous indignance, words on his lips as Devi tore the knife into his eyeball, losing the blade deep within his skull.  
  
And all the dreams in the world slowly lost their breath. 


	2. All God's Dreams Fall Away

At first there was just one long minute of nothing. God's head had fallen back and something inside of Devi had moved, something that wasn't really a part of herself. She felt a slight shock flow throughout her body, and then felt herself falling from God's chair, slowly drifting, drifting back, and… she might have closed her eyes, she thought it might have been an odd reflex, closing her eyes, but it might have been something else, perhaps it was the world that had actually gone black. Either way, there wasn't really a darkness, just… a lack of objects. Devi stopped falling and something tugged at her, a soft pull in a certain direction, a hint at an out-of-body experience, but it just as quickly gave up and she felt soft touch graze her fingers, and a sudden reminder of gravity, and then a harsh weight rapping her legs. Her eyelids fluttered, and she raised her head.  
  
And she realized, the short long moment of absolutely nothing would have been quite devastating if she hadn't had herself to hide in.  
  
And when she began to receive images into her eyes again, she was surrounded by great orange clouds and brown shrapnel raining down on her. As sensory-receiving cells slowly regained power in her body, she realized the pieces hitting her hurt… a lot. Dazed, she looking around, feeling, just FEELING the sharp objects pierce her skin, feel the blood rushing to escape her body, and then there was a small boy hiding underneath her arms.  
  
Devi caught his eyes and tried to feel a part of the world again. Finally she stood and grabbed the child, running for shelter. The problem was, there wasn't much shelter around, for everything was crumbling and shredding down into the dust that swept up and rain back down on her in wet torrents. So she just ran, dodging pieces of brain and burned legs and other unidentifiable parts of the world, and something in the distance was trying to suck it all in, and Devi ran against the wind, clutching at the screaming boy, running and falling and the blood and sweat and screams soaking her skin, she found herself sobbing silently, unable to see.  
  
Despite all this physical struggle, she found herself drifting away from concentrating on surviving. Just… give up. She stumbled over debris and fell, rolling down the dusty weeds, and Johnny leaned over her, and she froze, not knowing if he was going to kiss or stab her….  
  
No she was laying in the weeds and she looked up at the sky with teary eyes, Johnny wasn't there and the sky was running away from her, leaving her with the world that was falling apart. And there nothing there for her anymore, there was nothing but…  
  
And Sickness crawled up and leered at her, and she couldn't help but feel a tinge of pride, because this little monster was something she had created, something that she had the power over, even still…  
  
But Sickness blew with the wind and all the mind demons of Devi's slowly drifted away, cleaned the slate of her past projects and she didn't even have that, left alone without even her own creations… they weren't strong enough to hold against that violent wind… and soon Devi would blow away into oblivion too….  
  
Find something beautiful, find something that could make it last.  
  
Devi  
  
Devi  
  
Devi  
  
And everything in the world slowly faded away into monotone colors and their touch slowly lost power as reality pushed them out for their lack of worth. Only reality can exist now, so all the clubs, all the commercials, all the knives and people and houses that didn't mean shit, slowly, slowly, left her…  
  
And when finally, nothing existed, reality only remained.  
  
'Like the apocalypse… the chosen ones have left to escape to heaven - Nonexistance. And the ones left behind must deal with the world. Only really, that's not the bad choice.' Devi surmised with a smile, making fun of her own pretentious simile. And then she realized…. She was still thinking. She was still there. 


	3. if You Could Create a World of Your Own

Devi's body was sore. This thought was the only one she could sustain for the time... the feeling pounding through her body, she had never realized this kind of life. She was alive, and she could feel the sting of blood at the cuts and bruises embedded in her skin. She could feel the wind prickling her skin and the dust settling softly around her. She was alive.  
  
Even though she could only see dark greys and browns, she was quite happy to be able to see a world left at all. The boy Todd was shakily standing up beside her, and when he caught her eyes he smiled with a brilliance she had never seen in a person before. "Look!" He whispered, and then pulled his hands down in a long parallel pattern. Devi watched, numb, as Todd began a seemingly-choreographed dance, molding the air and shaping the sky. And slowly, colors and shapes began to drip out of his hands, and a small patch of the grey-brown was now covered with a deep red soil, on which a mutated looking alien blinked.  
  
"I'm a god." Todd squealed with joy. He continued his dance, which slowly caught fervor, as if some kind of spirit was telling him the moves. And out of his own jig, gnomes and tepees and spaceships grew out of the ground with vivid color, sparkling technology, realistic detail. When he finally stopped, Devi was just looking at him dumbly, unable to speak with the beauty of the world he was making. Todd noticed her look and wiped the air clean with another wave, leaving the original brown and grey. He sat down next to her to explain. "This is only the beginning." He told her, like a wise mentor helping an invalid. "These are only recreations of the old world. But we are left to create something that has never been thought of before. We have the power to know our minds, and let our thoughts take physical manifestation."  
  
"I really don't know where to go with this." Devi told him.  
  
"Of course. You're an adult. You're already too distant from your own mindthoughts. But you're here, so you have some original thought in you."  
  
"I should. I'm an artist." Devi thought, and then tried to pull them outside of her head. A scene slowly faded into the grey, and there was a brilliant night sky behind a car. She watched it sadly and then let it dissipate back into the muted colors.  
  
"It will take a while." Todd told her reassuringly. "It took me this long to get to fantasy, and I'm a kid. Just be patient."  
  
"What," Devi said slowly, "If I don't want to see my mindthoughts take form?"  
  
"But why wouldn't you?"  
  
"It's frightening. It's happened before. Even if we're left because we're Real People... that doesn't mean we're good."  
  
"And what's wrong with creating something that's not 'good'?" Todd laughed. Devi sighed and tried to force something out of her again. The scene with the car came back, the sky more powerful than the car. Shadows lay on the car and the sky was filling up the area, and then Devi shed light and Johnny sat peacefully at the car, faced off with the sky as if it was about to dissolve him.  
  
Todd froze at the sight and slowly looked up at Devi. "So this is what you mean by not good." He said, shaking his head.  
  
"No," Devi whispered with a smile, "this *is* good."  
  
"Well, you cannot live forever with dreams. You have to come back to Reality." Todd told her. "This is nothing, a scene. And I can assure you He is nothing."  
  
But Devi watched the shadow Johnny and said "He was the only Real one I knew. He was someone, even if it wasn't good, he was alive."  
  
"He's no one." Todd said loudly. "He's the epitome of nothing. Don't bother with it."  
  
"But if I see beauty in terror and reality in this life, you can't tell me that." Devi said. "It is my mind, after all."  
  
"I suppose. Then we should go our own ways." Todd bowed clumsily. "Good luck with your journey, and thanks for your help."  
  
"Thank you." Devi said politely, wanting him to go.  
  
"But..." Todd looked back, fear in his voice, "be careful." And then he disappeared into a shadow and Devi was alone.  
  
She walked into the night sky and the shadow Johnny looked over at her. "It's so beautiful sometimes." He said, and she could hear it in his voice, and she knew the boy was wrong. This was someone, no matter how lost.  
  
"Yeah." She replied, sitting on the car and crossing her legs. And the sky was so blue or purple, and the stars were about to rain on her, and she could feel the blood oozing out of her scars. "Sometimes, the world's just fucking beautiful." 


End file.
